Mountain Biking

I am very happy to live in Minnesota. I can do the things that I love year round. I am crazy about a few different sports. Track and running are my first. I ran track for 7 years through out Junior High, High School, and College. I ran the 200m and the 400m. I loved the feeling of competition and when you turn the corner to go into the last 100m and every muscle in your legs is screaming in pain but all you can do is concentrate on crossing the finish line first. I was fortunate enough to have really good coaches in high school that helped me grow as a runner and become successful in track meets. I was recruited to run track when I went up to UMD, but unfortunately it was not for me and I transfered to the University of Minnesota. Also, unfortunately I had conflicting school schedules with the practices here and was not able to try out for the team. I stuck with running and decided, well more like talked into by my brother, running longer distances. We ran the Medtronic Twin Cities 10 Mile in 2010 and the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in 2011. I am also going to be training this summer to run that marathon again.

Other than running, snowboarding, mountain biking, and long boarding are my next favorite sports, in that order. I love snowboarding. I have been boarding for 5 years now and I have been out west twice. I love the freedom that you have when you are on a board and gliding down the mountain. You can pick exactly what you do or where you go.I have 2 problems with snowboarding: first is that I live in Minnesota and there really is not mountains around here. I mean there is a lot of hills, but no mountains. Second, is that I can’t do it year round, that kind of goes back to living in Minnesota. Like for me, I also greatly enjoy mountain biking and long boarding.

I spend a great chunk of my free time on the trails mountain biking. I have not been doing this for very long but the sport has grown on me and I really enjoy it. Ever since I came back from Australia I have had a lot of free time on my hands. With that free time I have been trying to put it towards good use and go mountain biking as much as possible. I have gone 7 or 8 times in the past month. Unfortunately I have had so pretty hard spills.

First time I went biking since Aussie I was on the trail for about 45 seconds until I crashed. I was on an obstacle, a narrow tall bridge, and it did not end well for me. The bridge was about 4 tires in width and about 3-4 feet high. I was 2/3 of the way through when I lost my balance. My front tire went straight down and hit the ground so hard that I was not able to brace myself for the fall. I went head first into the ground. I hurt my neck really bad, my helmet bruised my face and I bit into my tongue and took a chunk out. I thought I broke my neck at that moment. I knew I had to get off of the trail so I took my bike and walked to the paved trail. I realized that my neck was very stiff but not broken. I was bleeding profusely out of my arm and my tongue but I knew I was able to make it home. Luckily I only lived 10 min away so I was able to make it back. The next few days consisted of pain and going to the doctors. Nothing was broken which was good and my cut up face was a great conversation starter at my interview that I had the next day. My next 2 falls were not as bad. One of them happened when I was on a tree bridge. I was about to drop in off of it and my tire slipped off and I took a tumble and the other time I just straight up hit a tree.

Because I love all these extreme sports and I have a pretty big passion for photography, I bought a GoPro last January. I used it a few times in Australia, but now I will be using it much more here. I used it for the first time on my bike the other day. My plan is to make a pretty sweet film by the end of the summer.

I think I have talked enough about my biking adventureand my love for extreme sports. I will ask this, I am looking to by a camera by the end of the summer. I love to take pictures and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on different cameras. Please let me know!